At McKinley Elementary in Ham Lake, it was like the first day of school all over again. Except this time snow was falling and students were bundled up against chilly weather.
“Welcome back, hello, good morning,” said Principal Mike Koenig as he personally welcomed kindergarten, first and second graders back.
“Today is a very exciting day. There’s kind of a buzz in the air and having all of our students back is just going to be fantastic,” says Koenig.
Koenig says staff has done a good job with distance learning. But, especially for the youngest students, it’s been challenging. At McKinley, 92% percent of kindergarten through 2nd grade students are expected back in person.
“It’s great that parents have confidence in us and they want their students returning to our building and trust the practices we have in place as far as safeguards and protocols for ensuring student safety,” said Koenig.
Those safeguards include a mask requirement, plastic barriers, and desks that are spread out with no students sitting in pods or clusters.
The Anoka-Hennepin District has also installed ionization systems in ventilation units across the school district. A video produced by the district explains how it works.
“Ionization is essentially pumping ions into our systems and ions deactivate viruses and bacteria whether they’re on surfaces or in the air,” said Greg Cole of Anoka-Hennepin Schools.
The video says it can eliminate 99% of any COVID virus that’s in the air within 30 minutes. Officials call it a game changer.
‘Just creating a more safe environment is really important,” said Cole on the video. “We felt this is a long term solution to not just the Corona virus, but other potential viruses and flu to come up in the future.”
State officials agree to re-open elementary schools partly because younger students typically stay in one group and with one teacher all day. That presents less of a risk.
In the Anoka-Hennepin District, the next group to return to in-person classes is the 3rd through 5th graders. They are scheduled back on February 1st.
